


Sucks to be Pleasant with You

by orphan_account



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Mothman (Folklore)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canonical Character Death, Creature Fic, F/M, Heavy Drinking, Post-Canon, Reincarnated Michael Langdon, Smut, Teratophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:59:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23055874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It’s been eight days since she ran over a teenaged Michael Langdon in Los Angeles. Five diners and six states later, she’s made it to her destination.
Relationships: Michael Langdon/Mallory
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37





	Sucks to be Pleasant with You

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are my own.
> 
> [Indrid Cold](https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Indrid_Cold), commonly known as The Smiling Man, is a purported humanoid entity. His name comes from his tendency to smile at those who encounter him. And it is also said that he still visits West Virginia today.
> 
> Reference for Michael's mothman dick be found [here](https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/781419825/custom-aventus-95-inch-knotted-silicone?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=dildo&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&frs=1&col=1)

The motel Mallory pulls into looks cheap and nasty, but the sign out front says that they take cash. They also don’t check ID, which she’s thankful for considering she doesn’t have one anymore.

It’s been eight days since she ran over a teenaged Michael Langdon in Los Angeles. In Flagstaff, she’d sat in a diner with a lukewarm cup of coffee and plate of pancakes, and had written two letters: one to Cordelia, and one to Queenie.

The enchantments she’d placed on both envelopes would assure that no one aside from the intended readers would view the instructions that she’d scrawled out in shaky ballpoint pen.

Not waiting to convince herself otherwise, she’d hypnotized a sweet looking waitress with acrylic nails to mail the missives for her post-haste. Easing back onto the interstate, she’d only spared a moment’s thought for how long Queenie might dither before retrieving Madison.

Five diners and six states later, she’s made it to her destination.

The postcard for Point Pleasant, West Virginia that she’d seen in a gas station window had made it seem like as good a place as any to disappear.

And that’s what she wants more than anything.

To disappear and fade from all recollection like the wasteland she’d left behind.

_Maybe I’ll go insane and start gutting hikers for fun._

A snort leaves her as she flops onto the thin mattress in her room. Her pack—filled with a lousy collection of clothing that she’d pilfered on her way—makes a gratifying thump on the floor.

“You look **_shitty_** _**enough**_ to be the Blair Witch.” The words carry the distinct drawl of another’s voice.

Mallory wrinkles her nose at the unintentional imitation. _The sincerest form of flattery_ , she thinks viscously. She scrubs a hand across her tired eyes and tries to relax the tension between her brows.

The wall clock ticks loudly.

It’s mocking her.

Bristling, she skewers it with a glare and watches as the hands grind to a halt and the face splits with a crack.

It doesn't bring her pleasure. Rather the opposite, in fact.

_Twenty-three years old and beating up inanimate objects. Fuck me._

She should sleep.

Pitching over on her side, she digs through her bag until she hears the tell-tale crinkle of a brown paper bag.

_Eureka._

Prize in hand, Mallory rolls over onto her back and twists the whiskey bottle open with a quiet snick.

Her first swig is eye-watering. She swallows a cough like Myrtle taught her and takes another hit. And another.

This whole situation—

Is ridiculous.

She’s a _witch_. She’s warping time and killing little boys after wasting two years and six months of her life fetching _juice_ and wiping _ass_. She has half of a business degree and a mishmash of memories, and she _doesn’t understand_ when or how everything went so wrong. But it’s like—it’s like she just got her life back and suddenly it’s over, and she isn’t _ready_ for this, for any of it. She isn’t ready to be _nobody_ when she’s just started being _somebody_ , and she’s so goddamn _angry_ , right, and the one person who’d understood that is dead and, _yes_ , he’d been the worst, but he’d also been—

Intense.

_Exciting._

She takes a gulp of the smoky-sweet liquor.

She’s never had someone _look at her_ the way Michael did. She’d saved the world at the price of his ruin—had crushed him under her tires and wiped him from existence—but, God, she’d felt _seen_ by him and she wants it _back_. Only—only, no, _no_ , she doesn’t. She’s just so fucking _lonely_ all the time now—

She shakes her head, abruptly dizzy.

Her vision is a little blurry, but she can just make out the shape of the moon—and the sun? through the window. She squints blearily at the glittering red orbs in the blackness of the night and wonders if there’s an eclipse.

That’s her last coherent thought.

**

The second day of Mallory’s new life in Point Pleasant, she wakes with a pounding headache and the taste of regret on her tongue.

Or maybe that’s the whiskey?

Either way, she spends a few ugly minutes dry heaving over the bathtub before she feels strong enough to shower.

She stands under the scorching stream for as long as she can before deciding that it’s impossible to dissolve and swirl down the drain. The towel she pulls off of the wall rack is rough on her pink skin. Wincing at the rub of bleach stiffened fibres on her nipples, she scrubs her teeth clean with a travel toothbrush and stares at herself in the mirror.

The slope of her nose and the bruises under her eyes give nothing away. No answers, no blinking neon sign saying, “this is what you should do next, Mallory,” and she sighs, turning away and flicking off the bathroom light.

**

The downtown core is a block from the motel.

Ambling down the sidewalk, Mallory takes deep breaths of fresh air spiced with loam and pine, and tries not to cringe like a vampire when blinding rays of sun hit her face.

Most of the shops she passes are closed, but a chalkboard sign done in cheery pink and teal declares that Cold's Bakery is open for business. Inordinately charmed, she follows an elderly couple to the door and scuttles in out of the light.

She has ten seconds to panic as a bell tinkles her arrival and several sets of eyes flick over to take in her sunglasses and dark attire.

The thought of her face being plastered on the news for murder has her feeling sick again.

But then a middle-aged woman is standing in front of her with a smile on her face, holding a carafe that smells like coffee.

“Welcome, darlin!” she twangs. “You’ll have to forgive the staring. We don’t get many travelers round these parts.”

Mallory is immediately a mess of relief. She lets the woman bustle her off to a small table in the corner of the shop and rattle off the morning’s offerings. She nods when an answer is needed of her, and soon a hot cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun are placed down in front of her.

Her first taste of sugary, buttery goodness loosens the sour knot in her stomach. She’s drained half of her coffee when the woman—Indrid, her name tag reads—returns with her carafe.

“Feeling a bit more **_human_ **now?” she asks, eyes twinkling above her plump cheeks.

Mallory freezes, wondering if this stranger is about to out her as a witch, but Indrid just taps her temple and smirks. “I’ve had enough hangovers to know what one looks like.”

Embarrassed, Mallory coughs and feels her cheeks colour. “Oh, um—”

“No need to explain, Sweetheart. I’m more curious about what’s brought a precious thing like you to Point Pleasant.”

“I’m not really sure,” she says, having the strangest urge to pour her heart out to this person. She cuts her eyes and fidgets with her napkin. “I saw a picture on a postcard, and I guess—I guess I just thought it was the place I needed to be.”

When she looks up again, the woman's face is sharp with predatory interest. “Do you believe in fate, Mallory?”

“Yes." 

She doesn’t remember offering her name.

The woman smiles again, but it looks wrong, distorted. “Sometimes the universe points you in the right direction.”

Mallory sways toward her, body heavy with gravity. “I don’t know what’s right anymore.”

The touch of her hand feels like thin paper. “Dear girl,” the woman whispers, fingers brushing over her cheekbone. “Your heart sings as bright as a flame.”

Mallory’s ears pop.

The pressure release brings a flood of noise. The ding of a cash register, the quiet chatter of customers.

She blinks dry eyes and realizes that she’s been staring off into space. It’s odd. She could have sworn that she was talking to someone a minute ago.

Disquieted, she finishes her breakfast and gathers her things to leave.

When she flags down the girl behind the counter, she’s informed that her bill has already been paid.

**

Point Pleasant continues to offer more questions than answers.

Despite seeing several help wanted posters on her excursion about town, the museum is the only place offering employment when Mallory enquires.

The wizened little man behind the counter, George, is happy to take her on as a cashier/caretaker effective immediately.

Voice jumping excitedly, he takes her on a short tour of the facility, shows her how to run the till and fill the $5 fee for entry into the ledger.

Mallory likes how there's never a moment of silence between them.

She’s not one for small talk these days, but George seems to have a never-ending well of anecdotes. An hour and a quarter of his life history later, he seems satisfied that she’s not going to burn the place down.

“Ta, luv,” he says in his soft burr as he retreats to his apartment upstairs. His knees creak so badly on the landing that Mallory feels worried for his balance. But she needn’t be. He’s surprisingly agile for 87. 

Left to her own devices, she carefully dusts the glass cases and shelves housing old farm equipment and replicas of artifacts from the American Revolutionary War.

That kills a neat forty minutes. Organizing the pens at the till by colour takes up another ten.

Bored and out of tasks, she checks that the open sign is still twisted the right way in the window and peers out into the parking lot, hoping to see a car.

All she manages to conjure is a headache.

 _“Right,”_ she says to herself. “Slow day.” She has practice with those.

Her silent, one finger salute is meant for Venable.

The second half of the morning is taken up curiously flipping through scrapbooks. It’s not hard to deduce from the various photographs and news clippings that the town has a bit of an obsession with catastrophes and urban legends.

Five whole books are dedicated to the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse and the subsequent re-building. Two other albums are filled with accounts of a figure dubbed “The Mothman.”

It’s fascinating and a little worrying.

Mallory wonders if she shouldn’t drink the tap water; lead poisoning has been known to cause hallucinations.

A small voice at the back of her head reminds her that she once thought witches were an urban legend. She determinedly blocks it out and decides to reorganize the pens by cap or clicker.

She’s contemplating a felt tip category when the rotary phone at the end of the counter rings.

“Point Pleasant Museum and Archives,” she greets, just like George told her.

The sound of heavy breathing comes through the receiver.

“Well?” she says testily, after several minutes of them panting into her ear. “Can I help you? Or are you just going to—”

“You’re still using cherry Chapstick. I can smell it.”

She clutches said Chapstick through the pocket of her dress. The voice is weirdly resonant. She can’t tell if it’s male or female.

“Who—”

“What are you doing here, Mallory?”

Her intake of breath is loud. “Who is this? How do you know my name?”

_“Are you happy?”_

The intensity behind the question throws her off base. “I-I don’t know,” she stutters.

“You aren’t.” It’s not a guess.

She feels acutely as if she’s disappointed them.

“I’m _sorry?_ ” she blurts.

The line goes dead.

Her memories of the rest of her shift are vague. She knows that George brought her down something to eat around 1:00 pm, but she doesn’t remember him locking up at 5:00 pm or the walk back to the motel.

When she gets inside, she sees that the maid’s been through the room and that someone’s left a gift basket in the kitchenette.

The card taped to the outside is stamped with the logo of the bakery she’d been at that morning. The reverse side is blank.

 _It must be some kind of small-town, “welcome to our neighbourhood” thing_ , Mallory thinks, surveying the assortment of scones, artisanal cheeses and preserves with covetous eyes.

She shrugs the gesture off as kind but unnecessary and decides to take a cold bath.

She’d worked up a decent sweat on her walk back. The air in Point Pleasant has thick feeling to it; like you’re pushing through a wall of humidity with each step. It reminds her uncomfortably of choking on her own blood.

Abruptly, the silence in the room is too much.

Mallory turns the television on to it’s one channel and shuts herself in the en suite with the intention to relax. The bathtub faucet trickles and then starts to gush when she turns the tap. Happy that the water doesn’t smell of sulphur or rust, she shucks her clothes and climbs in.

Head back against the ugly yellow tile, she closes her eyes and lets out a long out-breath.

_Are you happy?_

She’s not. 

She’s been drinking too much. It’s not _every_ night, but it’s been far too frequently for her peace of mind.

 _Best get a handle on that_.

She frowns.

She has no idea what kind of effect alcoholism would have on her magic long-term, but the last thing she’s going to do is lose control of the leash she has on her…darker impulses. 

Even dead, she would never give Michael the satisfaction of being right, ever, about anything.

The tragic irony is not lost on her.

Sighing, Mallory shifts her weight and hears her limbs squelch rudely against the sides of the tub. She closes her eyes and tries to drift.

A scratching noise begins.

She blinks.

It’s quiet at first, then growing; like nails on glass—

She’s silent as she rises from the water and wraps herself in her dress. She grips her bottle of shampoo defensively and creeps forward to open the bathroom door a crack.

The sun’s gone down, so the only light in the room comes from the television. A local news broadcaster drones on, blissfully unaware of the breakneck pace of her heart in her chest.

There’s a popping noise and then the scratching stops.

It’s replaced with a kind of slurping.

Unbidden, the image of white teeth biting through Marie Laveau’s heart enters Mallory’s mind.

She swallows convulsively and slips through the door, edging closer to the kitchenette and the source of the noise.

The first thing she sees are black taloned toes. They gleam against the cheap linoleum, huge and deadly looking. The feet are lightly scaled and blend with grey skin at the ankles. She follows them up the length of graceful, leanly muscled legs and discovers that the abdomen is similarly trim. A pelt of soft looking black fur draws her eyes to the virile pouch between the creature’s legs. She lingers there for a moment, morbidly curious, before following the fleece upwards to inspect the breadth of it’s chest and the massive fluffy wings folded behind it’s back. A mane of ash blond hair frames it’s chiseled face.

She gasps.

The shampoo bottle hits the floor.

Eyes that were once sapphire, dart to her shape in the darkness, now a bright, burning red.

The creature with Michael Langdon's face freezes mid-slurp.

Slowly, it—he? _He_ pulls his long, clawed fingers from his mouth and finishes swallowing his mouthful of blackberry jam. He keeps the stolen jar clenched in his other hand.

The feathered antennae above his eyebrows twitch with either curiosity or alarm. The guilty smile that stretches his pink lips suggests it’s the former.

Mallory gapes.

_No. **No** fucking way. _

As she watches, Michael—and it _is_ Michael, the mannerisms are too spot on—straightens from his crouch and tugs on his imaginary waistcoat like he wasn’t just caught doing something as uncouth as eating from a jar.

“Er, right,” he says, raising an imperious brow. “I’m sure you have questions.”

Mallory’s jaw snaps shut. Rage seethes. 

“YOU FUCKER!” she screeches and flies at him.

Michael has just enough time to put the jar down on the counter before her fists are beating against his chest.

“Stupid asshole! I _killed you_ ,” she sobs, pressing up on her toes to hit him harder. The bastard's even taller than before.

“I thought you were dead! I _hate you_ , I hate—"

She tires herself out after insinuating some uncomfortable things about his mother’s proclivity for goats.

Michael eyeballs her with those unblinking red orbs and waits a handful of extra seconds to make sure that she’s done.

When no more violence is forthcoming, he pulls her limp body close and pets at her hair with a big hand. The chirping noise that he makes helps calm her panting breaths.

“There, there,” he drawls. “I imagine this is rather a lot for your mortal brain.” He eyes his claws distastefully as they scratch gently through her hair. “I can’t say that I was too thrilled when I was sent back as this…thing.”

It’s odd how his touch is so familiar, yet to her knowledge he’d only laid his hands on her once.

“You’re the Mothman,” Mallory chokes, with sudden understanding. She barks a bitter laugh. “Oh God. This whole thing is a big cosmic joke. _You_ drew me here. I never had a choice.”

Michael nods like she’s just confirmed something that he already knew. “It seems that we’re stuck with each other,” he says firmly.

“And you remember everything? You know what I did in California?” she asks. She tips her head back and catches the way his face flashes with anger before settling into a neutral mask.

“Yes.” The word is crisp. “I was quite upset with you about that. I thought about driving you out of town, but you looked so…”

“Pathetic?”

“Sad.”

The confirmation stings. Mallory rubs her cheek against his fur, wanting the chirping back.

“Indrid’s an interfering fool,” he continues, narrowing his eyes, confusingly, on the gift basket. “They know I love blackberries.”

“Who?” Mallory asks.

“The bakery owner."

“I don’t know who that is, but you think they're something too? A cryptid or whatever?”

“I’m not sure. We’re not exactly holding monthly meetings with _Sasquatch_ and the _Easter Bunny_ in the basement of the church.”

The snide arrogance in his voice makes her want to punish him. She eyes his hulking mass and, not spoiled for choice with weak points, digs her nails hard into the grey skin over his ribs.

What happens next is fascinating.

The unflappable Michael Langdon shudders like he’s been electrocuted, his wings unfurling in a majestic arc. Fairy dust rains down around them, coating all of the surfaces in the kitchenette.

Mallory’s in awe. Later, she’ll wonder what possessed her, but right now she’s too curious to care.

Michael exhales and flexes his hand on her low back as if he’s just realized that all she’s wearing is a makeshift toga. “You’d be wise to steer clear,” he says roughly.

She hums a response, too interested in what’s happening with his body to pay attention to his advice. Moving slowly, she slides her hand lower down his side and digs her nails in again—right over the cut of his oblique.

Michael lets out a loud chirp, his hips jerking toward her. More dust rains down, settling like body glitter over her bare shoulders and the tops of her breasts.

Mallory’s blood roars, the greed of her body sharp and sudden.

“Michael,” she says, because she can. And she’s shaking a little now, but that’s okay because he is too. One of his hands has made its way up to her throat, and it’s curled there, thumb rubbing unconsciously over her pulse. _“Michael,”_ she says again, because they’re both alive, and this is insane. It’s insane, and it’s _really_ hard to feel as if she’s collapsing in on herself when her hands are against his weird, warm skin.

The low, strangled noise that Michael makes lets her know that he’s just as confused—and then he’s picking her up and spinning around to drop her on the edge of the counter. 

Mallory drops her dress and he pushes her legs open roughly with both hands. Groin slotting against her own, Michael buries his face in the hair spilling over her shoulder, twisting through it until he can kiss the curve of her shoulder and up her throat to her ear.

Mallory moans.

She’s never been this girl.

She’s never been naked with another person without knowing them extensively—has never wanted to _seduce_ _the boogeyman_ —and she’s never time traveled and killed a teenage boy to do either of the aforementioned things in a crappy motel room in buttfuck nowhere West Virginia. 

Michael lets out that strange chirp again and she sinks her fingers into his hair, hauling his face back to hers. And she’s kissing him. She’s kissing _him_ , former antichrist and current creature of myth, like she never wants to stop.

Her hips roll, and the rub of fur against her clit is strange but recognizably delicious; feral. She humps at him until the pouch bumping up against her sex starts to swell, his weird cock snaking outward to meet her wetness. It’s inhumanly shaped, widened in some places, and curved and tapered in others. The tip, at least, is flared like normal.

Mallory breaks off the kiss and looks up, watching as Michael tilts his head down in a curious and questioning manner.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” she asks, voice breathy with arousal. She hasn’t stopped her slow grind.

Michael huffs a noise and jumps when she hits a sensitive spot. “How am I supposed to know?” he says, just as breathless. “This is the first time I’ve seen it.”

“You mean the Easter Bunny hasn’t been giving you handies?”

He pays her back by pulling her head back by her hair and dipping down to nip at her breast.

The sting skirts the edge of pain, and her body responds with a tightening low in her belly.

She wants to cry out at him.

“Fuck me.”

“No. You were rather swift with your rejection at the Outpost. You can ask me politely.”

She wants to slap his face.

“I want you to fuck me.”

“Ask.”

“Will you please, _please_ fuck me, Mothman?”

The hand on her thigh immediately tightens, tilting her enough to press his cock against the mouth of her cunt.

“Is this what you want? To fuck me now that I’m as ugly as the both of us are on the inside?” he asks.

_“Yes.”_

He shoves into her with one blunt movement.

Mallory cries out with the sudden pressure, her walls clamping down against the assault. It’s too much. She could not be more filled. He pulls her closer, his warped shaft stirring inside of her, and there’s a gurgling sound that doesn’t come from him. 

Pain gives way to ravaging pleasure.

It’s everything. It’s perfection.

She curls her fingers into the down on his chest, anchoring herself as he fucks into her roughly, the force jolting her back and forth over the counter. She both hears and feels his deep inhuman groan.

 _“Fuck, Mallory,”_ he says in a beastly voice.

He pulls her head back farther so that she’s nearly bowed in half, angling her to press biting kisses against her throat and her chest. His tongue flicks out, long and prehensile, curling around her breasts, tasting her. It feels slick and cool, and simultaneously like it’s covered in spines.

It burns.

She begins to make little noises at the back of her throat, hips juddering as she seeks out relief for the incredible pressure building inside of her.

Michael leaves off the licking he’s doing to search her face. “You’re going to come.”

He can feel it, the way she’s beginning to grip him.

“Yes.” She nods, eyes falling shut.

“Good.”

He wraps his soft wings around her and fucks her at a pace that makes her bite her lip to keep from crying out.

She feels cocooned…safe. She hasn’t felt this way since Cordelia first told her that a demon wanted to hunt her kind. _This_ demon. This exact one. 

She forces her eyes open and meets his sanguine gaze.

“You hurt me,” she says, brow wrinkling with bewildered emotion. “And I hurt you.”

“I know.” He scratches gently over her hip, stretching his thumb over to brush the hair at the apex of her thighs.

It tickles and she shivers.

“I’m angry with you. And you’re angry with me.”

“I know.”

She follows the tick in his jaw to his pulse and presses closer, busses her lips over it. “I don’t want to feel angry anymore," she whispers.

He circles her clit _very_ carefully with a claw and rolls his cock into a spot that makes her see sparkles. “So, don’t. Be with me. Feel me.” 

She sobs. Her eyes go unfocused.

“No,” he says. “Look at me, Mallory, don’t close your eyes, look at the monster you’re milking, _look at me_ —"

She gasps, the lightening coil in her spine exploding, and looks.

She looks and sees that he’s just as frightened, just as lonely, just as lost.

She cries out and feels his cock spill inside of her, his body wrenching hard.

The extra burst of fairy dust that shakes off of him has her grinning into his mouth because—because—he’s a _moth_ , she thinks, dazed. He’s a moth and he made her _come_.

**

Powder is steadily turning to grit against Mallory’s chest, sticking to the sweat on her skin, and she can feel the slickness between her thighs soaking the sheets of the bed. She doesn’t know what he’d done with her dress, but she suspects it got lost in the shuffle from the kitchenette.

“I was supposed to be the Supreme,” she says suddenly, lifting a hand and spraying crumbs from her half-eaten scone. “I was—I was supposed to be something. I had a purpose. I was never supposed to get _lost_.”

Michael snorts. _“Tell me about it.”_

He turns toward her, wings once again folded at his back, and leans down to peer into her eyes. His expression is solemn in the way that it always was before he’d say something cutting to Venable or Gallant. He smells like sex and flowers and _her_. It’s distracting.

“Did I mention that I’m going to cruise the freeway later and scare the shit out of some commuters?”

She shakes her head and takes another bite of her scone.

“No.”

“You’re welcome to come with me and stand on the side of the road like a damsel in distress.”

“Oh?”

He brushes his lips along her cheek.

“I find myself interested in your company,” he mutters.

“Is Sasquatch all booked up for the evening?”

He pinches her waist with his claws.

“Just for that, you’ve been downgraded from damsel to Blair Witch. I’ll roll you in a mud puddle on the way over.”

She snickers, heart hammering for an entirely different reason than when she'd been ready to bean him with her Pantene.

_Sometimes the universe points you in the right direction._

“It’s funny,” she says thickly. “I was thinking the same thing earlier. Our partnership of terror must be fate.”

He chuckles.

“Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame.” 


End file.
